It Takes a Village

On the outskirts of Sydney stood a brutalist sculpture of grey concrete, red brick, steel rails and sheets of dull green galvanised iron that someone had decided to call a school.

A boy and a girl sat on opposite sides of an upstairs classroom, unaware that they were both thinking about each other in rather different ways. The girl was pretty, buxom and blonde, and sat on the edge of a desk with her bare legs dangling over its front, nervously swinging her black shoes back and forth. She was part of a circle of uniformed students, the rest of whom were staring at her so expectantly that none of them noticed the white knuckles of her hands gripping the edge of the desk as though she was afraid of falling off.

Courtney was, however, more afraid of wetting herself in terror and embarrassment. She opened her mouth and gave a strained, reluctant shout — the kind of shout that didn't really want to be heard, as though warning an unpleasant person that they were about to step into the path of an oncoming bus.

"I love Sebastian Barlow!"

Her face burnt as guffaws erupted from the gaggle of students. Some of her classmates shot furtive glances across the classroom to where the boy was sitting alone. He was tall, though hunched over, and handsome in a brooding kind of way. Thin strands of ebony hair fell across the thick-rimmed plastic glasses that windowed his cobalt eyes, obscuring his vision, but not before his eyes lighted on Courtney. She was decidedly not looking at him. His heart sank and his own cheeks flushed. Sebastian turned away, his eyes beginning to sting. A single tear rolled down the side of his nose and smudged the date in his diary.

19 December 2008. The last day of term.

Sebastian wasn't so much looking forward to the summer holidays as he was relieved that term was just hours from ending. Six weeks of compassionate leave from Cobham High lay before him. Six weeks without regimented lessons. No bells. No homework. No humiliation. No Courtney.

Though Sebastian had long been a target for bullies, and many of the perpetrators were gathered around Courtney, she herself had never done anything to intentionally hurt him. Now he couldn't help think of Courtney as a collaborator, working with the enemy.

Declaring love for Sebastian was a suitably humiliating dare to put to anyone, but it caused Sebastian unusual pain because those were precisely the words he longed to hear from Courtney. When they had first met, Courtney was nothing like the girls Sebastian knew in primary school. Even at thirteen she had been more woman than girl, and Sebastian was immediately smitten with the tall, shapely girl whose infectious laugh was confident and genuine. Yet life at Cobham High was hard enough without being teased for having the temerity to think he had a chance with Courtney. Fearing the inevitable rejection, Sebastian had no choice but to pine for the girl he loved and try to wank himself senseless for the next five years. It had almost worked.

Courtney, who had no inkling of this, was not thinking about Sebastian's feelings whatsoever. Conversely, Sebastian was only thinking about his own feelings. That, in a nutshell, was the problem. It is easy to openly state one's revulsion at something disgusting — a slug, a cockroach, a used car salesman — without having any regard for how that makes the thing feel. The slug, cockroach or used car salesman doesn't think of themselves as revolting, nor do they understand why people recoil from them. Had Courtney paused to think, she might have realised that the dare was more humiliating for Sebastian than for herself, and the reasons for humiliating him were not particularly good ones. Instead, she was just glad when it was someone's else turn to choose truth or dare.

---

Six weeks later, Laura Schmidt was busy at the stove and singing along as Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" blared from the clock radio on top of the refrigerator. It was only nine o'clock in the morning, but already the midsummer heat was forcing its way into the house, and Laura's flaming hair was tied up in a bun, her full figure clothed in nothing but a pale pink singlet and denim Daisy Dukes. Breakfast was the usual last-Sunday-of-the-month fry up — sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, tomato and mushrooms, all with a side of buttered toast and a mug of builder's tea. It was her way of trying to make her nephew feel at home. She had even negotiated with the local butcher to get the right kind of sausage and cut of bacon.

Upstairs, a half-conscious Sebastian groped clumsily on his bedside table in an effort to seek and destroy his alarm clock. The urgent clanging continued as his glasses and wristwatch clattered to the floor. Sebastian cursed under his breath while the demonic cackle reverberated through his skull. When silence was finally restored, he rolled onto his back and stared bleary-eyed at his bedroom ceiling. Australia was Hell's waiting room. The summers were brutal and Sebastian hated it. His body was sticky and his dry mouth tasted sour. Foolishly, he took a swig from the bottle of tepid water beside his bed. All it did was make him grimace.

With a quiet, self-pitying sigh, he kicked his thin cotton sheet unceremoniously to the foot of his bed and sprawled out, naked but for his black briefs. The alarm had exorcised yet another of Courtney's nocturnal apparitions. They haunted him even as the summer holidays were drawing to a close. Cautiously, Sebastian slipped a hand into his briefs. "Dry," he muttered nonchalantly.

Swinging his legs off the bed, Sebastian stood, stretched and yawned, then stooped in front of his bedside table to pick up his glasses and watch. His bedroom came into focus when he jammed his glasses onto his face and he saw that he had also knocked down the cards he'd received for his eighteenth birthday. There were only four of them, including one from his aunt, but Sebastian kept them near to remind him that he at least had some friends. Unfortunately, the cards also reminded him that Courtney too had turned eighteen that summer and, once again, he'd failed to find a way to wish her a happy birthday.

Refusing to dwell on that, Sebastian found yesterday's discarded trousers and t-shirt crumpled in a corner. He picked them up, determined they were clean enough for breakfast, and pulled them on. As he descended the stairs, he passed a portrait of a man and a woman who hung in silent judgement. The man bore a close resemblance to Sebastian, as though a reflection of Sebastian's own future, while the woman was pretty and had long, fiery locks like Laura's. Although Sebastian had his doubts that Heaven existed, he hoped that, if it did, his parents weren't looking down in disappointment. He liked to think they had better things to do up there.

---

Before Sebastian came to live with her, Laura was used to getting around the house in nothing but her underwear. It was only after noticing that her then-pubescent ward didn't know where to look that she started covering up. Sebastian appreciated any effort to keep latent incestuous urges at bay, but Laura's shorts and singlet did little to conceal her figure. He was mildly annoyed to enter the kitchen and find she had dressed down that morning though not enough to broach the subject.

"Morning!" he shouted over the radio, which was now playing "Take on Me" by A-ha.

Laura turned, a bucktoothed smile forming on her plump lips. She turned the radio down.

"Good morning," she replied in a silvery voice. "Tea won't be long. You can set the table."

Laura was the only close family Sebastian had. He was ten years old when his parents were killed in a car crash. After one last Christmas and birthday in London, he was sent halfway around the world to live in a small town populated by small minds on the edge of the sprawling Sydney metropolis. For most of his subsequent schooling, Sebastian had been bullied for being different. Foreign. Bookish. Friendless. A natural outsider and an easy target.

Sebastian knew that should have put his infatuation with Courtney into perspective, but it didn't. Teenage angst overshadowed all as unrequited love's acute pangs insistently stabbed him in the heart.

Laura watched as her nephew sat at the table, idly picking at his breakfast. Apart from Sebastian, no one was more shocked than her at the death of Sebastian's parents. Laura was only twenty-two at the time, barely a decade older than Sebastian. Though young and single, Laura had her own home and steady work as an accountant. Along with their flaming heads of hair, Laura and her sister had inherited the house in Mansfield from their mother. After her sister married Sebastian's father, an Englishman, the couple moved to London, where Sebastian was born, leaving Laura to live alone in the house. Upon the death of her sister, Laura became the sole owner. That had been a tick in the right column when it came to deciding custody over Sebastian. The authorities felt entrusting her with Sebastian was preferable to putting him in an orphanage or foster home.

"Everything okay?" Laura asked, setting the mugs down and slipping into the chair opposite Sebastian. She had never really settled into a parental role, something which she put down to their closeness in age, but she strived valiantly to find a compromise between mother, aunt and big sister.

Her nephew looked up from his plate. "Oh," Sebastian said in a voice that almost succeeded in sounding off-handed. "Yes."

Laura tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and eyed Sebastian briefly.

"Courtney?" she ventured, and smiled sympathetically when he nodded. "Well, I'm here if there's anything you need to get off your chest." She gave his arm a gentle pat. That was all she could do, and all Sebastian wanted her to do.

They turned their attention to breakfast and the room was soon full of the sound of cutlery scraping on ceramic plates.